Changxin surges by 450%, and Hefei state-owned capital gains a total of 1 trillion yuan.
The highly anticipated moment.
On July 27, Changxin Technology Co., Ltd. officially made its debut on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board. In this IPO, Changxin Technology's issue price was 8.66 yuan per share, and it surged by more than 450% after the market opened, with a market value exceeding 3.2 trillion yuan.
After ten years of unremitting efforts, Zhu Yiming once again stood on the bell-ringing stage. He founded GigaDevice, a semiconductor company with a market value of hundreds of billions of yuan. In 2016, he took a huge gamble and chose to establish Changxin Technology in Hefei, focusing on DRAM memory chips, a field that was almost blank in China at that time.
As a result, it created the largest IPO in the history of the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, and also brought super returns to a large number of investors behind it.
Under the leadership of Zhu Yiming, the largest IPO in the history of the Sci-Tech Innovation Board
Zhu Yiming is undoubtedly the soul figure of Changxin Technology.
Born in 1972, Zhu Yiming graduated from the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University. He worked in the overseas semiconductor industry for many years in his early years. In 2005, 33-year-old Zhu Yiming made a decision that surprised everyone: leave everything in Silicon Valley behind and return to China to start a business.
In that year, Zhu Yiming founded Jixin Jiayi (the predecessor of GigaDevice) in Tsinghua University Science Park, focusing on the R&D and sales of NOR Flash memory chips. In 2016, GigaDevice successfully listed on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and its market value has exceeded 300 billion yuan so far.
But Zhu Yiming did not stop. GigaDevice tried to expand the DRAM market — the most important type of memory chip, and also a key battlefield for the localization of chips. This track, which has been monopolized by Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron for 40 years, is the real final battle.
Zhu Yiming finally decided to build a factory independently, but this was a project with huge costs. Fortunately, Hefei extended an olive branch to him.
At that time, Hefei had put forward the strategic goal of building a "IC Capital" and planned to make up for the shortcomings of the chip industry. After learning about GigaDevice's needs, it quickly signed a co-construction agreement with it — the Hefei government provided funds, and the enterprise provided personnel and efforts. The two sides hit it off. In this way, in June 2016, Changxin Technology (formerly known as Ruili Integration) was officially born.
In 2018, the first production line of Changxin Technology was officially put into production, but the reality dealt a heavy blow to the team: the yield ramp-up in the initial stage of the new wafer fab was extremely difficult. Equipment debugging, process adjustment, and personnel running-in all consumed huge amounts of money. The company continued to suffer huge losses, and many people left their jobs.
At a critical moment, Zhu Yiming resolutely resigned from the position of general manager of GigaDevice, only retained the position of chairman, and served as CEO of Changxin Technology. He even issued a military order: before Changxin became profitable, he would not receive a penny of salary or a penny of bonus.
Finally, in September 2019, Changxin's DDR4-specification DRAM chips were put into production, and the first domestically produced large-scale DRAM chip in mainland China was born.
So far, Changxin Technology's products mainly cover two mainstream series of DDR and LPDDR, and have completed product coverage and iteration from DDR4 and LPDDR4X to DDR5 and LPDDR5/5X. Its products are applied in server, mobile device, personal computer, smart car and other market fields. According to Omdia data, in terms of production capacity and shipment volume, Changxin Technology has become the largest DRAM manufacturer in China and the fourth largest in the world, successfully breaking the long-term overseas monopoly pattern.
It has also got rid of the predicament of losses. Since the second half of 2025, Changxin Technology has achieved continuous growth in operating revenue and a substantial increase in gross profit margin, and achieved a turnaround from losses to profits ahead of schedule — in this year, Changxin Technology made a profit for the first time, with a net profit attributable to shareholders of 18.75 billion yuan for the whole year. In the first quarter of 2026, Changxin Technology's revenue was 50.8 billion yuan, its net profit was 24.7 billion yuan, and the overall net profit in the consolidated statements was 33.012 billion yuan. Converted, it is equivalent to earning 367 million yuan on average every day.
In just a few years, Changxin Technology has completed the journey that giants took more than ten or even decades to finish.
Review of the financing story
Ten years of Changxin has created a classic investment case in the venture capital circle.
In 2016, the total investment of Changxin Technology's first-phase project was about 180 billion yuan, of which Hefei Industrial Investment contributed 144 billion yuan, accounting for as high as 80%. At that time, under the background that domestic DRAM technology, equipment and talents were almost zero, this investment was regarded as taking an extremely high "death risk".
A person in charge of Hefei Industrial Investment once said a sentence: "What we invested in is Zhu Yiming himself." This is the best interpretation of "investment is about investing in people". Many investors have expressed the same view to us.
In fact, before the first chip was mass-produced, Changxin Technology had been facing great capital pressure. I remember that in 2019, Zhu Yiming once revealed at a public event that Changxin Storage had spent 2.5 billion US dollars on R&D and capital expenditure. With such a huge cost, the importance of financing is self-evident.
It was not until the third quarter of 2019, after Changxin Technology mass-produced its first DRAM chip, that the financing situation gradually improved. In December 2020, an industrial and commercial information showed that institutions such as the Second Phase of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, Anhui State-owned Assets, GigaDevice, another enterprise controlled by Zhu Yiming, and Xiaomi Yangtze River Industrial Fund took shares in Changxin Technology. According to public information disclosed at that time, in this round of financing, Changxin Technology introduced many investors other than Hefei State-owned Assets, such as CICC Capital, Legend Capital, TCL Venture Capital and other institutions.
2021 was even more critical. Changxin Technology launched a new round of financing, but at that time, the company's products had not yet been mass-produced on a large scale, its financial data was still in loss, and the path of technological catch-up was full of uncertainty. According to the recollection of Capital Today, at that time, most institutions held a pessimistic attitude, coupled with the fact that Changxin's valuation was not cheap, there were very few institutions that were really willing to continue to follow up.
"The Changxin project is extremely difficult. It requires integrating massive resources, coordinating the opinions of multiple parties, and bearing huge pressure. Relying solely on enthusiasm is far from enough." recalled Zhang Wei, Chairman of Capital Today. But from Zhu Yiming, they saw rare entrepreneurial spirit, industrial ideal and pattern.
Finally, in September 2021, Capital Today invested 1.2 billion yuan in a heavy position to lead the investment in Changxin Technology, becoming the largest minority equity investment in its history. It is reported that in this round, Changxin Technology opened a full due diligence to only Capital Today.
At that time, Changxin Technology was already a super unicorn. The list of other investors in this round includes but is not limited to: GigaDevice, Country Garden Venture Capital, Midea, China Reform Fund, Anhui Provincial Guarantee Group, China Merchants Capital, Anyuan Fund, Yanchuang Capital, Lanpu Investment, Hengxu Capital, Yunfeng Fund, Yanyuan Venture Capital, Mingsheng Capital, Qianhai Mother Fund, HuFu Jiaye, Wantou Group, Xinke Venture Capital, etc.
In 2021, Walden International also failed to reach a consensus internally on whether to invest in Changxin. At that time, the industry and capital cycles were in a downward trend, confidence in the investment market was low during the epidemic, the Sci-Tech Innovation Board boom had faded, and the DRAM track was too difficult, with too much risk and too long a cycle. Most institutions avoided it, and there were also differences within Walden International.
It was not until Dr. Peng Guie (Polly), Managing Partner of Walden International, overcame all objections and made the final decision to invest nearly 900 million yuan in Changxin, which led to the largest investment in Walden International China's history.
Dr. Peng later explained that when the industry is so difficult that the financial model cannot be quantified, the judgment of the founder is the biggest model. "Precisely because we have seen too many failures of memory projects, we know that in this track, people are more important than numbers."
Since then, Changxin Technology has continued to make progress in financing. Institutions such as Yunfeng Fund, Yangguang Insurance, Qianhai Mother Fund, Junhe Capital, Orient Asset Management, and CCB International have entered the market, and there are also two Internet giants, Tencent and Alibaba.
What is impressive is that in 2024, Changxin Technology raised another about 10.8 billion yuan in financing, with investors including GigaDevice, Hefei Changxin Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd., Hefei Industrial Investment No.1 Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), and CCB Financial Asset Investment Co., Ltd. So far, Hefei State-owned Assets is still the largest shareholder of Changxin Technology. In addition, the AIC platforms of the five major state-owned banks of China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, and Bank of Communications all entered the market collectively; six major insurance capital institutions such as Hexie Health and China Life Investment also placed heavy bets.
A closer look shows that Alibaba also made a heavy investment. In June 2025, this was the last round of financing before Changxin Technology's listing — the investors included Alibaba Cloud, Xingqi Daohe, and Guangzhou Xinde. At that time, the subscription price was 2.63 yuan per share, and Alibaba Cloud, as the largest investor among them, spent 6.1 billion yuan in one go.
Coupled with the 3.85% stake held by Alibaba Cloud, the Alibaba system holds a total of 4.97% of Changxin Technology's shares, making it the largest industrial investor behind the company. In addition, Tencent's 1.50% stake is second only to the Alibaba system among industrial capitals.
After ten years of development, the long line of investors behind it has ushered in the moment of IPO bell ringing.
Enlightenment from China's urban competition
A group of people changed an industry, and an enterprise changed a city. Looking back, the ten-year story between Hefei and Changxin undoubtedly brings enlightenment to the industrial leap of Chinese cities.
Hefei State-owned Assets has reaped the greatest return. According to the prospectus, the combined shareholding ratio of Qinghui Jidian, Changxin Integration, Hefei Jixin and other entities before Changxin Technology's issuance is about 45.16%, of which the Hefei state-owned assets system holds a total of about 36.79% of the shares. Calculated based on a market value of 3 trillion yuan, the market value of the shares held by Hefei State-owned Assets exceeds 1.1 trillion yuan.
Financial returns are only secondary. The far more profound victory lies in the comprehensive rise of Hefei's industrial ecosystem.
When Changxin Technology just started, Hefei not only raised funds everywhere for Changxin, but also provided "nanny-style" services such as talent introduction. At that time, the Airport Industrial Park in Hefei Economic and Technological Development Zone was nothing more than a wasteland. Ten years later, around the Changxin Technology Group and the core wafer main plant area, all the supporting facilities here have been activated. It is reported that the rent here is more expensive than in the urban area, and the consumption structure, population structure and urban temperament have been completely changed, and it is jokingly called "Changgang CBD".
In terms of ecology, Hefei has invested a total of 200 billion yuan over the years to build a memory industry cluster integrating a wafer manufacturing base, a supporting industrial park and an international town. At present, more than 450 upstream and downstream enterprises in the integrated circuit industry have gathered here, covering the entire chain of design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, materials and equipment, forming an industrial ecology of "leading drive, supporting coordination and cluster development".
A city, a chain, an ecology. The "Hefei Model" that has been circulating in the venture capital circle has become a reference sample for industrial development in various regions. From BOE, NIO to Changxin Technology, it is this strategic determination that spans cycles and the investment banking thinking of "driving investment with guidance" that has made Hefei a powerful force in China's venture capital arena.
The growth of an enterprise cannot be separated from the support of people. Over the past ten years, the number of employees of Changxin Technology has grown from a few hundred to nearly 20,000 — according to the prospectus, as of December 31, 2025, the total number of employees of Changxin Technology is 19,298, of whom 6,259 are R&D personnel, accounting for as high as 32.43%. It is these people who have changed the fate of a wasteland.
At present, Changxin Technology has implemented two phases of employee stock ownership plans, covering a total of 6,760 person-times. The grant price of the first phase is 1.05 yuan per registered capital, and that of the second phase is only 0.108 yuan. In addition, Zhu Yiming voluntarily took out 768 million shares under his personal name, which will be fully distributed to in-service employees within 10 years after the listing is completed for 36 months. Calculated based on the issue price, the market value of these shares exceeds 20 billion yuan, which is the largest personal equity incentive in the history of A-shares, without exception.
Not only that, Zhu Yiming also promised an extremely long share lock-up period: he will not transfer the shares he holds in the first ten years after listing, and the maximum reduction each year in the second ten years will not exceed 20%.
Because of one enterprise, a city has been changed.
The industrial upgrading of any city is often a difficult and long process. However, when a city truly cultivates the industrial chain as its core asset and shares talents as its most precious wealth, the era that belongs to it will naturally emerge.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Daily IPO", author: Yang Jiyun, published with authorization from 36Kr.